


where was my fault (in loving you with my whole heart?)

by talkingismylife



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingismylife/pseuds/talkingismylife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Argent's version</p>
            </blockquote>





	where was my fault (in loving you with my whole heart?)

**Author's Note:**

> I actually hate Kate Argent with a passion, but I can't help but think that there must have been a reason Derek was spared and a reason why she did it. This was born from a conversation with my sister and written at 3 am while sleep deprived and delirious.  
> Also un beta'd because this is my first fic here and my first Teen Wolf as well

She wasn't always a monster. She wasn't always the beast hiding under the bed, the demon screaming to the moon, the devil with the flame. In the beginning she was a girl, and she was in love. 

 +

He was just another kid, someone who stared a bit too long and blushed like a rose when she caught him with a half turned smile. But like all great romances, that was all that they needed. 

He helped her roll in the lane lines late one night as all the other lifeguards left, the other families and children leaving dripping puddles on the warm asphalt as they left the pool behind. Together they pulled in the plastic buoys, speaking softly under the light of the moon.

"I'm Derek," he offered, pushing a hand out towards her. She arched an eyebrow, a mocking smile on her lips-- _always_ mocking, couldn't he see she teased because she loved?--but took it anyways.

"Kate."

 +

He kissed her for the first time behind the shed where the pool kept the kickboards for the little kids learning to swim. It was just a peck, really, and he stammered out apologies as he attempted to run away from her (most days she wishes he had, wishes he did). But she had laughed, reeled him back in with a hand to his arm, and taught him how to really kiss, his back pressed to the shed, eyes open in shock (if only he had seen how dangerous she was, how dangerous she could be--)

 +

It didn't really matter that he was younger. After all, she was seventeen, he was a fresh fifteen, the smoke still lingering from his birthday candles. It was legal, she was charmed, he was willing--

 +

They kept it to themselves because she was supposed to be focusing on training and his sister didn't know what _privacy_ and _personal boundaries_ meant. 

"I love her, don't get me wrong, but some days I just want to kill her, y'know?" he complained as they hid out in the woods, miles and miles from home. "Life would be so much easier for me if she just went away and never returned."

"Siblings are like that," she agreed, tracing spirals onto his hand, nuzzling back against his chest. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, holding her closer until their hearts beat as one and it grew to impossible to tell which belonged to whom. "My older brother is like that as well. Always ratting me out to my dad if I so much as step one foot out of line. They want me to take over the family business, want me to be this... _thing_."

"They can't make you be anything you don't want to be," Derek protested, still blinded with the ease of fifteen and the innocence of a child who had never seen werewolves murder and maim and kill, never seen what her family did in response. (She knows now that he knew, knew because he was one. But instead of him being the monster that went bump in the night, she was)

 +

She took his virginity on a blanket on the preserve, pressed against the dirt with the sickle moon cutting open the sky above them. He arched against her, her name pulled from his chest like it hurt, like she had dug her nails in and ripped out his heart. (later she would. later she would crush his heart with both hands and a match). 

" _Don't stop_ ," she gasped, blinking up at the night sky, as he groaned her name into her shoulder, gasping out promises of eternity and hope and euphoria and _escape_. 

"I love you," he mumbled, pulling her from her stupor so that she had no choice but to close her eyes to his honesty and agree as their heartbeats matched, two lost souls finding each other. 

 +

She returned home in a cloud of happiness, of love, of teenage romance and the promise of a new page. She remembered the feel of his hands against her skin, the sound of his voice panting her name over and over, the knowledge that _he loved her_. 

"Can I come in?" 

She startled, biting her tongue to try and hide her secret love from her brother. He stood in the doorway, perched awkwardly, just watching. 

"Yes?"

"I know what you're doing," he informed her, his eyes cold. She sucked in a deep breath, her fingers digging into her thighs as she tried to keep her calm. 

 _Please don't ruin this please don't ruin this please don't_ \--

"Stop using my arrows, they're fucking expensive for a reason and I don't need you ruining them because you just want to practice, brat," he snapped, releasing her heart. "Do it again and I'll tell dad."

He left her lying on the bed, eyes shut against the fear and the panic, relieved that he was still her secret. 

 +

They drive three towns over to go on their first official date. He's so nervous that they hardly talk the entire way down. He glares out the window as she drives (still has his permit, but his dad takes him for lessons in his sister's Camero), but he holds the door for her and pulls out her chair so she can sit. He pays, mumbling something about how his favorite uncle gave him the money along with a condom, and she can't help the laughter that bubbles free from her chest, snorting pizza and Coca-Cola across the table. It breaks the awkward hold on them as he flushes, but joins in eventually until neither can breathe, all they can do is entwine their fingers and hold on.

 +

She should have known that it was too perfect. That she can never have something that wholesome, that pure, that safe. She gave him her heart, trusted it to a young boy with eyes the color of the sea during a storm that said her name like a prayer, and took his in return. She loved him with every fiber of her being, every breath she took and every beat her heart made. And when her father made her shoot arrow after arrow into the target, taught her to track the wolves and to kill on command, she closed her eyes and pictured him growing up to take her away to live with him and his family, safe and protected and _loved_. 

 +

"You need to get away from them," he whispered as they stood together at the pool, her eyes locked on the water, his on his cousins splashing in the deep end. "They're _hurting_ you, Kate."

"I want to," she confessed, thankful for the sunglasses that hid her eyes from the crowd, from him. "But I have no where to go, no one to help--"

" _I'm_ here, Kate," he grumbled, turning to look at her, eyes narrowed and bright in the sunlight. " _I'll_ always help you. I love you."

"I love you, too," she whispered, her throat dry at his honest confession. "More than you can imagine."

 +

Her father found out on a Tuesday. (She wishes she could turn back time, tell herself not to be so obvious. Wishes she knew that a hunter owned the small cafe they went to in the town over. Wishes she could have told them to wait, not to be stupid and hold hands and kiss in the presence of others, _to keep it secret_ ).

 +

He found out what she was--is--on a Friday, and she learned about him. He pinned her against a tree and _roared_ , flashing his eyes as his face turned into the stuff of nightmares, the monsters her parents had warned her about, had taught her to fear and hunt and _kill_.

"YOU LIED TO ME!" he bellowed as she cowered, terrified to see the boy she had loved to selfishly and wholly as the very thing she was raised to kill. "HOW COULD YOU! YOU USED ME!"

"Derek, please, I'd never!" she sobbed, falling to her knees before him, arching her neck to him and submitting everything to him, offering her own heart. "I didn't know what you were, I don't care, I'd never care, _I love you_ \--"

"LIAR!" 

"Please, Derek!" she screamed, scrambling to make him see. "LIsten to my heart, you can hear it, you know that I'm not lying, that I mean it when I say I love you! I didn't know what you were, I didn't know, I don't want to be this! I don't want to hurt you, I love you, please!" 

And, by some miracle, he does listen. 

He listens to the way her heart never faulters, the way she gives him the only hope and truth she has, the only present she can give him. 

"I love you," she breathes, reaching up for him as he falls to his knees beside her, pressing their foreheads together and just _listening_. 

 +

"I'll ask my mom," he whispered as they lay under the stars, hidden away from sight in their own secret clearing, their own secret place. "She's the Alpha, she'll give you the bite if you ask."

She closes her eyes, nods. 

"I'll do anything to stay with you."

 +

When an arrow pierces the human body, it makes a sound akin to a palm slapping a fat pumpkin, hollow and dull. Hunters use it against werewolves because the wounds can't heal until the shaft and head are removed, making the pain even worse and weakening them without killing them right away.

Her father used it on her when he discovered that his daughter, his precious Katy Cat, was fucking a monster. 

The arrow stuck out of her leg, the same ones her brother accused her of stealing, branding her with the shame of her betrayal. 

He strung her up from the ceiling as though she were a wolf, and in his eyes she was even worse, a _sympathizer_. 

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," her father growled, twisting the shaft of the arrow until she was screaming, whimpering in pain, dizzy from blood loss. "Where did I go wrong? My own _child_ , my flesh and blood, reduced to a wolf-fucking _whore_!"

He backhanded her and she wept, accepting the five fingered star of shame and disappointment. 

"Now I know how Juliet's father felt when he discovered she was fraternizing with the enemy," he roared, reaching for the heavy sword he used to dismember those like _him_. "At least he had the satisfaction of knowing she died, rather than carrying on dishonoring her family."

"Daddy," she whispered, broken. "Please...I love him."

With a roar unlike anything she had heard before, her father raised the sword, swinging it towards her. (How she wishes it had killed her then. Wishes he had done the deed then and there so she'd never have to live knowing what she did, what he made her do)

He instead cut the rope that had kept her up for the six hours he spent torturing her, letting her fall to the floor in a crumpled, broken heap. 

He beat her; kicked her into submission, cursed her very name, made her repent her sins in screams and blood and broken bones. And when he was finished, he picked up the silver knife he had given her on her eighth birthday and carved her sin into the flesh of her abdomen. 

"Now everyone will know what you've done," he spat, letting the knife clatter to the ground before her face as he turned and walked away from her. 

 +

He called her six times, her phone buzzing with each new voicemail as he begged her to meet him, to tell him where she was, if she was okay. each time she pressed ignore, curled up around the bruises and scabs, wishing she could forget, wishing they'd never met. 

(Afterwards, when she was long gone from Beacon Hills, she would trace the letters her father branded her with and think about how she never regretted him, only regretted she wasn't strong enough to protect him from herself)

 +

She returned to her father, knowing that she had no other choice. His family would never accept her and her family would never stop hunting them.

He spared her life--a life he gave her. Weeping, she would beg for his forgiveness, promised that he would never see him again, never touch him, never even look at him, only if her father would spare him. 

"Please, Daddy," she begged, choking on her sorrow. "I'll do _anything_ , please, just don't kill him!"

He smiled down at her, pressing one hand into her hair before cupping her cheek and lifting her chin, his fingers digging into the bruises he left, thumbing the swollen mess of her eye, pinky rubbing against the palm print kissing the swan curve of her neck. 

"There's my Katy Cat," he purred. "The prodigal child has returned."

 +

The price for _his_ life and _his_ forgiveness is almost too much to bare. She threw up, spewed her guts onto her fathers Persian rug that he stole from a raid years before, her disgust landing next to the blood stains of the Alpha that fell so her father could claim his prize. 

But she did as she was told.

(She wishes she never had, wishes she had run far away and never looked back. Wishes she had crept into his room and stolen away with Derek as his Huntress and he as her Omega)

 +

She put on the face and the clothes, snuck into the bar, and bought drinks for the bitter man who looked nothing like Derek until he divulged his secrets. She let him kiss her, let him press her up against the brick wall of the alleyway and steal more of her soul until she could pretend that it was eyes like storms staring at her and a heart that matched beating against her chest. 

 +

It took three hunters, seven containers of kerosene, two bags of mountain ash, and one match to burn the house to the ground. She lit the match under the heavy gaze of her father and watched them die. She hid in the shadow of the trees until the paramedics appeared, until they put out the flames, until they pulled eleven bodies from the basement, until the tears dried on her cheeks and her father patted her shoulder, telling her he was so proud. 

 +

The howling lasted all night, heart breaking and harsh and broken, the sound of two wolves who lost everyone and everything. She cried, so happy and relieved that he was alive, thankful that her father had saved his life in exchange for her soul. 

 +

When the sun rose, she slipped out her window, heading for their clearing. He was there, waiting, like she had asked him to. 

He was practically feral, completely taken over by the beast inside of him. He attacked her, throwing her so hard against the nearest tree her ribs cracked again, his claws digging into the meat of her arms. 

He snarled, howled, growled, snapped at her, trying to take out his anger and his pain and his loss on her. 

"I did it for you!" she wheezed, closing her eyes against the pain. "All of it, so that we...so that you... _he was going to kill you!_ "

"My pack!" he howled, collapsing onto the dirt. "I should have died with them!"

"I sacrificed _everything_ so that you could live!" she snarled, crawling towards him. She reached out a hand, brushing his cheek with the gentle caress she had known from no one but him. "So that we--"

He shoved her back, pinned her to the earth with his claws, growling into her face. "You _murdered my family!_ If you think that I'll ever _touch_ you let alone look at you again you are INSANE! YOU BURNED MY FAMILY! YOU KILLED THEM!"

His tears fell onto her cheek, burning her as she struggled to break free, to escape him.

HIs fangs glimmered in the light, and in that moment she feared for her life, terrified that he would kill her, or worse, turn her. Those eyes that used to glance at her with utter adoration hardened with hate, and she knew that hte boy she loved was dead, burned in a wisp of smoke that she had lit. 

Her father hadn't needed to kill Derek, she did it for him.

She pulled the blade from the sheath in her boot and slashed him across the chest the way her father taught her, kicking him off her as he reared back in both pain and surprise. 

She ran from the clearing, her heart in her chest and eyes blinded with tears as he screamed his hatred for her, her heart breaking with each step.

 +

They sent her to Texas to train with cousins. Her father visited once a month on the full moon, and together they hunted for the beasts. (She always prayed they would find him, even though she knew they would only meet on her last days, knew that he would be the last thing she'd see before her life would be stolen from her the way she stole his)

 +

She left behind the girl she was. She burned the images from her mind of them together, locked them up and cast them from her mind until all she remembered was the fear tight in her throat as he roared above her, his teeth dangerously close to her throat. She trained until she was a weapon, a beast, a _hunter_. 

 +

The day her father told her that she was ready, that he was so proud, that he had taught her everything she needed to know, she locked herself in the bathroom and rolled up her shirt. With tears in her eyes she traced her shame with shaking hands, spelling out _TRAITOR_ in spindly scars across her skin. 

 +

She knew what Scott was the moment she laid eyes on him. She knew that what Allison and Scott felt was real, knew that it was exactly what she felt all those years ago for him. She helped cover their tracks, drew the attention away from Scott and towards the other, Jackson. She made Chris see what she wanted to see so that she could hunt her old love while Allison basked in the joy of her own. 

 +

She went to visit him, tried to play the roll of big bad bitch, tried to act like she had seduced him, had tricked him into seeing something that wasn't there, that it was all his fault. 

But it wasn't, it never was. 

 +

When she had him tied up in the basement, she remembered the way she had dangled for _hours_ , screaming as the electricity ran through her veins. She remembered the way her father had beaten her within an inch of her life. How he pulled up her shirt and cut her, leaving her scared forever. 

 _But she never told._  

She defended him, refused to give up anything they didn't already know, refused to take his life like her father demanded. She took theirs in return, but saved him. She told her father to spare him, and he was. She endured more than she could take, and he threw it back in her face. 

She loved him, but he didn't love her enough. 

 +

(She knows, in the back of her mind, that no one could love her because she burned a family to the ground in the name of love)

 +

When Peter held her by her throat, she knew. She knew that it was the end. Her sins finally caught up with her, and she was going to die. 

" _Apologize_ ," he commanded.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, clutching at his arm, knowing that he could hear her, knowing that he was listening. 

 +

She closed her eyes and remembered the boy who had bent her over a blanket his mother had sewn, the boy who whispered his love into her ears. She remembered the scent of his skin on her's mixed with the chlorine, the feel of his hands running down her sides, raising goosebumps with each touch. She remembered looking into those eyes that glowed blue and gasping _I love you_ and meaning it. She remembered how it felt to be whole and alive and safe and in love, remembered how it felt to have Derek and how to hope of a life with him. She closed her eyes and remembered the way it was, the way it used to be. 

 +

She opened them, looking at Allison and praying that she would have a chance. And then the claws dug in and her world went dark, his name dying on her lips. 


End file.
